


in the hollow of his throat

by radialarch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky says, very calmly, "I'm not going back on the goddamn drugs."</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the hollow of his throat

Back when they’d been looking for Bucky, Sam had given Steve exactly one piece of advice. “Look, man,” he’d said, “I know you. You’re gonna wanna find him and take him and save him. You can’t.”

“Didn’t we already have this conversation?” Steve had said. “Thought you changed your mind.”

“Naw, this is about you. You gotta understand, you can’t make him better. Only person who can do that is him.”

Steve thinks about that a lot, the days after they find him. He tries to give Bucky some space, to let him figure out what he needs from Steve.

Steve’s never done well with being told that he can’t, but the truth is this: he doesn’t know, hasn’t the faintest idea how to fix him.

———

Steve knows Bucky doesn’t sleep well. Sometimes it’s three in the morning and he can hear Bucky pacing in the spare bedroom. Sometimes he gets up for a drink of water and finds Bucky hollow-eyed on the sofa.

Tonight, though, Bucky’s been in the bathroom for an hour and the tap’s been running the whole time, so Steve feels pretty justified in being worried.

“Hey, Buck?” Steve says softly. “You okay?”

Bucky doesn’t answer — Steve hears him sniff, under the sound of the water, and he’s about to speak again when there’s the distinct sound of gagging.

“Bucky,” Steve says immediately. He rattles the doorknob, already preparing to break the door down, but it turns out it’s not locked and Steve ends up staring at Bucky, looking pale and drawn on the floor. The room smells faintly of vomit.

“Are you sick?” Steve asks. “Do you need a doctor?"

Bucky shakes his head. The movement seems to trigger another bout of gagging — when he looks back up, he’s breathing hard. “No hospitals,” he says. “No doctors.”

“Okay,” Steve says. “No doctors.” He sits on the floor next to Bucky, reaches out a careful hand to press against Bucky’s shoulder. “We can still get you some help. If you want.”

Bucky laughs, raspy. “Gonna ask your pal Stark to fix me up? ‘Sorry, buddy, I know he killed your parents but can you do me a favor anyway?’”

“Tony doesn’t blame you,” Steve says automatically. “And I think any feelings he has about that are buried under how much he wants to look at your arm.”

Bucky laughs again. He leans his head back against the wall and gives Steve a faint grin. “Anybody tell you that your friends are a little weird?”

Steve grins back. “Well, you know,” he says. “I’ve always had terrible taste in people.”

———

"This is gonna be great,” Tony says. “Hold out your arm, right there — good, stay still. Tell me if anything hurts, or feels funny — it shouldn’t, but you never know. JARVIS, do a full scan, and then throw it up here. Make it big, it’s gonna be gorgeous.”

“Your enthusiasm is touching, Sir,” JARVIS says, at the same time as a line of blue starts traveling over Bucky’s fingers.

“You know, I’m almost 100% certain I did not program you to make fun of me,” Tony says. “98. 95?”

Bucky keeps flicking his eyes at the ceiling and then back at Tony, his mouth twitching a little like he can’t quite believe it. Steve supposes it’s rather different from being a lab rat for Hydra.

“How do you feel about needles?” Tony says conversationally. “Blood panel, would be useful. No? Don’t make that face, I’m not gonna make you. Maybe urine? Wanna pee in a cup?”

Bucky shrugs his right shoulder. His left is perfectly still.

“Yeah, okay,” Tony says. “We can work up to it. Dinner and a movie first, maybe.”

In front of them, JARVIS is building up the joint of Bucky’s elbow from threads of light. Steve thinks about reaching out, pressing his palm to the curve of Bucky’s back, and shoves his hands in his pockets instead.

“Oh, look at that,” Tony says, delighted. “What a beauty. Full neural integration, right? Try wiggling your fingers. J, you getting this?”

JARVIS has shaped the virtual arm all the way to the shoulder; Steve can see the jut of Bucky’s scapula at the edge of the shoulder joint. Bucky smiles grimly and curls his fingers into a fist — and the hologram _lights up_. Steve had thought it had an austere, mechanical beauty about it before, but now it’s incandescent, strung through with brilliance.

“Hmm,” Tony says, and jabs his finger at a point on Bucky’s forearm that’s only faintly lit. “That’s not part of the original circuits.” He gestures, and the hologram obediently spins around. “Elbow, and the two on the upper arm, too. Somebody put those there, after. JARVIS?”

“They appear hollow, Sir,” says JARVIS. “Perhaps some sort of chemical reservoir.”

Tony clicks his tongue. “Drugs? Drugs could be tricky. We really gotta crack this baby open.” He reaches out, pats the plates of Bucky’s arm. “C’mon. Gimme an hour under the hood, and I’ll give you any upgrade you want.”

“You could get rid of it,” Bucky suggests, and grins tiredly at Tony’s horrified expression. “I’m kidding,” he says. “Break out your screwdriver, Iron Boy.”

“Man,” Tony says, hilariously affronted, “Iron _Man_ ,” and maybe that’s why he misses Bucky muttering under his breath, “You’d have to rip it out of my spine.”

Steve hears it, though. Bucky looks at him, then looks back away, his mouth an unhappy line. Steve breathes out through his nose, slow, and ignores the way his fists are digging into his thigh.

———

After Tony’s gotten his tools together and pulled a chair up, Bucky says, “You should use restraints.”

"Do you have sensation in the arm?” Tony says with interest. “Pain? Pressure? Didn’t you guys have anesthetic in the forties? It’s not all stoicism and belt between your teeth anymore.”

“Doesn’t hurt,” Bucky says. “But it might be — safer, for you.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve says. There’s nothing else he can say.

There’s a brief, terrible silence. “Okay,” Tony says. “If you want —”

“It doesn’t matter what I want —”

“Sure it does,” Tony says easily. “Hey, look, poking a deadly assassin while he’s having a panic attack just isn’t my idea of a good time. And I would really like to have a good time with this lovely arm here, so maybe if it’s the same to you we can skip the bondage this time?”

Bucky frowns.

“Good,” Tony says, like everything’s settled, and pulls Bucky’s arm closer to him under the lights. "If you’re really worried, get Cap to hold your hand, that’ll probably do it.”

Bucky hesitates. The fingers of his right hand twitch.

Steve reaches over, because he can’t do anything else; and after a moment, Bucky takes his hand. Steve remembers: this is what drowning feels like.

———

Long before they’re done, Steve loses all feeling in his fingers. He thinks maybe it’s worth it for the way Bucky looks at him afterward, chalk-white and shaky but — alive. Here.

———

“Well, it’s drugs,” Tony says when the lab results come back. “And not the fun kind.”

“They had you on frankly crazy amounts of antidepressants.” Bruce rubs a hand over his face. “I’m surprised your heart didn’t give out.”

Bucky’s mouth twitches, and Steve knows, suddenly, that it must have happened before. Maybe even more than once. Then Hydra — or the serum — had brought him back, so they could try again. Get it right.

He breathes.

“— kind of clever, actually,” Tony is saying. “Give an intense but limited dose, send him off for some nice murder, then the withdrawal kicks in. Like a chemical leash.”

“It worked,” Bucky says, low.

“But look,” Bruce says, frowning. “You’ve been with Steve for what, a couple of weeks? The wells are dry, that’s not a safe dose to go off of cold —”

“It’s fine,” Bucky says, “I’m handling it.”

“Really,” Tony says. “Because I’m pretty sure Captain Sadface over there said you were up half the night puking. Which, hey, I’ve been there, I’m not gonna judge, but I’m just saying, you could handle it better.”

“You should really talk to a doctor,” Bruce says, and Steve briefly wonders if they’d planned this, or if they’re just used to teaming up. “They can start you on a safe dose, titrate off slowly —”

Bucky says, very calmly, “I’m not going back on the goddamn drugs.”

———

Later, after Bucky’s thrown up for the third time and Steve, helpless, gets him a bottle of Gatorade, Bucky says, “They could have made me.”

“What’s that?” Steve says. He makes Bucky lie down on the sofa and sits down himself, watches Bucky wiggle his head into his lap.

“Your friends,” Bucky says. “Didn’t think they’d give up so easy.”

Steve hadn’t been awake when Bruce injected himself with a drug he didn’t know would turn him into a weapon, nor when Tony wired a battery into his chest. But he thinks about it, now; he forgets, sometimes, that their bodies have gone through war, too.

He presses his palm against the plates of Bucky’s wrist. “I think,” he says slowly, “it’s what they would’ve liked.”

Bucky closes his eyes. “I would have done it,” he says. “Would’ve been easier for you — for everyone. But I had to know.”

Steve breathes, and grips Bucky’s wrist until his knuckles go white. “You don’t,” he says fiercely, “you don’t ever have to do anything you don’t want.”

When he looks up, Bucky’s staring at him, mouth quirked. “Is that a fact,” he says

“ _Yes_.”

“Rogers,” Bucky says, “you’re a goddamn romantic.”

Steve laughs, and laughs, until he can’t breathe. He feels Bucky sinking back contentedly against his stomach.

“I don’t know how long it’ll take,” Bucky says, a little drowsy. “Might not like it so much when I’m still doing this in three weeks.”

“Shut up and get some sleep,” Steve says, stroking a bit of hair away from Bucky’s face. “I’ll be here.”

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently I started writing this in like, July? And then I forgot it was a thing until I found it browsing my tumblr drafts. What can you do.
> 
> The antidepressant Bucky was on is venlafaxine, and obviously don't take medical advice from random fic you read on the internet, but also: don't do this. I very highly do not recommend it.


End file.
